The Terrifying Line in Obama's Speech That Everyone Missed

But critics overlooked
one promise that will guarantee an even bleaker future.There was plenty to dislike in Obama's speech. The language was flat,
his delivery languid. The speech was stuffed with standard Obama
chestnuts about the smallness of politics, the corrupting influence of
money in politics, and how cynicism is our worst enemy.

Instead of stirring rhetoric filled with hope and promise, Obama
pledged that under his leadership, "our path is harder" and "our road is
longer."

Seriously? After four years of the worst economic recovery since the
Depression, falling incomes, lower-paying jobs, increased hopelessness
and exploding debt, all Obama has to offer is that he'll make this
nightmare last even longer?He also told the public that they "elected me to tell you the truth"
not to "tell you what you wanted to hear," but then proceeded to hide
inconvenient truths while filling the public's ears with sweet nothings.

For example, he pledged government help for everyone who could
possibly want or need it, but managed to avoid any mention of the hard
truth that the national debt just topped $16 trillion and entitlements
are unsustainable.

He said he'd spend money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan on roads, bridges and schools. Even the liberal press wasn't
buying this one. As the AP pointed out, Obama "laid claim to a peace
dividend that doesn't exist."

Obama promised to "take responsible steps" that would "keep the
promise of Social Security." But he failed to mention that the only
options he's left on the table are raising taxes or cutting benefits.
That may not be what people want to hear, but it's the absolute truth.

He
trotted out his supposed plan to cut deficits by $4 trillion over the
next decade. But his actual plan — the budget he presented in February —
would add $3.5 trillion in deficits, according to the Congressional
Budget Office.

Then Obama said he'd create a million new manufacturing jobs, recruit
another 100,000 math and science teachers, cut tuition growth in half,
and reform the tax code. All by magic, apparently, since he's provided
no detailed plans on any of this.

But while everyone was picking apart these and other flaws in Obama's
speech, they overlooked the most frightening line of all. That was when
Obama promised that he'd pursue "the kind of bold, persistent
experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis
worse than this one."

That promise might have made liberal hearts swoon. But as Amity
Shlaes explained in her outstanding history of the era — "The Forgotten
Man" — it was precisely FDR's "bold, persistent experimentation" that
was largely to blame for the length, depth and severity of the Great
Depression.

Convinced that the government had to do something, FDR tinkered and
experimented, she said, figuring that if he didn't "get it right the
first time ... maybe he'd get it right the second time." But the very
arbitrariness of FDR's actions, she found, made it impossible for
businesses to make plans. And so, as FDR's bold experiments increased,
business activity decreased and markets froze.

"From the point of view of a business," Shlaes said in a 2009
interview, "it is annihilating to hear Washington uncertain, and that
itself retards recovery because you really don't know what to expect."

If Obama wants to conduct experiments, he should get a job as a high
school science teacher, and not use the entire nation as guinea pigs,
particularly when we already know how his tests will turn out.